


By All Flowers

by hedgerowhag



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (they are both 18), Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Humor, F/F, Featuring: feelings expressed through obnoxious teasing, First Time, Misunderstandings, Summer Romance, Summer Vacation, Supernatural Elements, by the same idiots but as two idiot girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-11-10 11:26:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11126097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedgerowhag/pseuds/hedgerowhag
Summary: The best way to avoid your problems is to run away into a forest. Everyone knows that.---Water breaks somewhere behind the corner of the oxbow and Hux flinches from the flowers. Between the thin saplings, she can see the froth where the water has been disturbed.Brambles shiver and the white sole of a foot flashes between the leaning nettles on the other side of the river. Tanned legs flicker in the sunlight and disappear before Hux’s eyes can follow them up.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from 'since feeling is first' by e.e. cummings (thank u to the Significant Annoyance for suggesting it like a year ago)
> 
> raise ur hand if u are sick of me writing aus that have absolutely nothing to do w the canon

The forecast promised rain. But sunlight is still hitting clear on the window over Jamie’s highchair. Hux watches the spider web scratches turn the sunbeams while Jamie spits out another dollop of baby food. The toddler laughs, spluttering.

Hux scoops the apple gloop off Jamie’s cheek and spoons it back into his giggling mouth. She can hear Maratelle’s soft slippers shuffling on the wood floor and continues to scoop and deposit baby food as her mother stops in the kitchen door threshold.

“Hey honey,” Maratelle murmurs. Fabric whispers as she ties her bathrobe.

“Hey mom,” Hux replies.

The air is cool in the tight kitchen where the rusting pipes ping and water drips into the cracked white sink.

“You will make a great mom,” Maratelle says. “You know, when you have your own kids.”

Hux grunts and slips more apple mush into the toddler’s mouth.

“Maybe you will meet a great guy in college when you start in fall.”

Jamie is trying to push away the baby blue plastic spoon, but Hux insists he finishes the last scoops.

“I wish I waited until classes started to meet you dad—”

Apple mush slaps across the floor as the toddler cries. Hux stares impassively at the small bunched, red face while her mom rushes in and grabs Jamie under his arms to lift him from the highchair.

“There, there, baby,” Maratelle coos to the toddler as she wipes the slop of his puffy cheeks. Her own face is drooped and hair mangled into something colourless. She is meant to be thirty-four and thriving.

“He didn’t finish,” Hux insists, turning on the stool.

“You had enough, Jammy?” her mother murmurs. “All full?” The toddler doesn’t stop crying. “I think you overfed him.”

“He usually finishes the full jar.”

Maratelle turns away and rocks Jamie as she walks to the kitchen door. “Poor baby, he must feel sick.” She turns to her daughter. “Want to watch TV with me? Then we can try and figure out what to do with the old wallpaper.”

Hux looks down. Her sandal toe is poking the green mush on the linoleum. “No,” she says. “I’ll go out. Maybe I’ll find those flowers you were talking about.”

“Which flowers?”

“The yellow ones.”

“Marsh marigolds?” Jamie is starting to quiet in his mom’s arms.

“Yes. The ones you showed me in your old book.” It’s the dusty one with ripped edges, the one they found in grandpa’s office when they came into the cabin. It was mom’s when she was a girl.

Mom smiles wide. It pulls on the harsh lines on her face. “Alright,” she says. “Bring me some back if you find them.”

 

The hazel leans crooked over the cabin’s fenced dirt yard. Hux steps down from the porch that was painted mint green a decade ago, before grandpa and grandma left for Europe, and kicks the stones that used to mark the boundaries of the old vegetable garden.

The small wild flower book is packed inside Hux’s glossed leather bag, the fashionable one that is only meant to be used for events – as her father’s wife had instructed while she selected it at a French boutique. She payed more than a sane man would for rent and it already has scuffs.

Hux goes out of the yard onto the dirt lane. The ground is so dry she feels it crack under her sandals, but at least the shadows from the trees are cool on her shoulders. Hux turns and looks back at the cabin. It’s hunched from the wear it has taken from decades of standing through forest storms and winters. They only just managed to get cable channels.

Maratelle said that it looks like a fairy tale cottage, with the little mismatched windows and the bowing porch. If that is what she wants to grapple for, Hux agreed; she just doesn’t want it to seem like dad is finally winning this war of tug.

Hux had realised that it was a competition when, during their Cannes outing, Brendol sent her away to buy dresses with his wife and daughters. The woman forced Hux into a stiff yellow frock which she wore to a restaurant where elbows were blasphemous on the table. She felt like a fucking buttercup with her yellow dress, yellow shoes and orange fucking hair. At least, she doesn't have a uniform here.

Only one road leads away from the cabin and it isn't tarmac or cement, just sun-baked dirt that is poked through with overgrown weeds. Beside it, telephone poles hide their heads in the canopies like they are trying to blend into the scenery.

Hux follows the cracked mud wheel tracks until the ground dips and a trail weaves down from the road into the forest. Under the hazel and the birch, the air is thick with the smell of flowers and the sound of birds singing frantically as they jump from shrub to shaking shrub.

There is no sound of traffic, or the suburban white static. It would take Hux hours to find the edge of the forest where roads lead out toward the major towns. It’s hours and hours away from the cities and their smog filled skies.

Hux walks down the slope of wild raspberry tangles, holding her mom's botany book poised in front of her eyes. She will find every flower on the pages if it means that she has an excuse to avoid mom and the frantic cleaning and mending of the house because dad might be visiting with his troop of children.

Maratelle never cared about how her boxy suburban house looked. Why would it matter now how the moulding cabins looks compared to a five star Cannes hotel? It’s a competition.

Hux finds the page for marsh marigolds. There small washed out stickers around the edges of the paper – cute animals and little stars and hearts. Hux reads the description of the flowers. There are words underlined with age washed glittery gel pens.

Hux shoves the book into her bag and marches down the slope. Brambles snag on her denim skirt and low branches swipe streaks on her white blouse. Her sandals, flat and smooth for city strolls, are digging up soil and slipping on roots.

A gurgle of water comes from between crowding ferns which Hux follows through the forest to a plane of flat ground between mossy trees. There are stagnant pools of swamp water that are circled off by mounds of grass where Hux’s sandals sink into the gulping mud as she tries to talk around the water. Her toes are heels are black by the time she makes it across to the other side where the ground drops onto a pebbled river bank.

The currents glisten under the light that drips through the leaves of the leaning trees as the river cuts against the opposite bank where nettles and brambles hang over the water. Hux can see the flat grass over a field between the trees and bushes that grow on the other side of the stream.

Distant laughter breaks over the sound of the running water and feet dash across the flattened grass as a yellow frisbee flash against the thunder cloud divided sky.

It’s a summer camp. Hux saw their coaches unloading when she arrived in her mom’s car. She saw the teenagers pile out with their dyed hair and overloaded packs. They can’t be younger than her.

Voices spill in the summer thick air and Hux walks along the empty bank, looking up at the clouds that shutter the sun. She can hear pinpricks of water hit against the canopy. Her feet slip on the ground when she sees the wink of yellow blossoms by the dip on the bank and hurries when a drop of water hits the crown of her head.

Rain droplets bounce from the marigold petals, bowing the leaves and dripping into the swamp pools. Hux reaches down, putting a foot on a protruding rock for balance. She snaps a stem, and then a second.

Water breaks somewhere behind the corner of the oxbow and Hux flinches from the flowers. Between the thin saplings, she can see the froth where the water has been disturbed.

Brambles shiver and the white sole of a foot flashes between the leaning nettles on the other side of the river. Tanned legs flicker in the sunlight and disappear before Hux’s eyes can follow them up.

Rain splats on the nape of Hux’s neck and she snags three more stems before grabbing the bunch in her fist and running.

Her feet sink in the mud to the ankle as she forces her way through the swamp pools. Hux grabs onto the brambles and pulls herself out as the rain rushes into the forest.

The downpour is a static that almost washes out the sound of sandals slapping up the dirt road where the wheel tracks have been beaten back into the earth by the rain. Hux holds her hair back as she run against the hill’s ascent, ignoring her shivers and aches.

 _Tap tap tap tap_. The summer shower is dancing on the roof of the mint green cottage as Hux is chased up the porch steps. Under the cover, she looks at the flowers she has been holding against her chest.

The stems are bent and the petals are mangled, drooping from the little yellow heads. Hux touches the limp petals and several drop away like wet rags.

The marigold fall on the dusty boards and Hux steps over them, opening the cabin’s door.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The rain stopped for an hour yesterday. Hux had ran outside to pull the tarp over the car before she was herded by an oncoming shower back inside the house where Maratelle was taking down the old kitchen shelving units.

Today, a migraine decided to keep Maratelle away from cleaning out the junk from the shed behind the cabin. Instead, she slept in the living room with Jamie on the carpet, minded by a circle of his toys, while Hux went to sit in the old study.

It's midevening and the air is thick with the smell of must in the boxy room where Hux watches from the bowing office chair as the last rain drops roll down the window. Outside, the bumblebees hum while dancing about the foxgloves under the sun. Their sound is overwhelmed by the tearing of wallpaper in the living room.

Hux pulls on her leather boots and walks out into the hallway without lacing them. She looks into the living room. Her mom is shoving strips of wallpaper into a trash bag, compressing the ribbon curls and tying down the plastic. Jamie is still sat on a rug in front of the glitching TV, watching an outdated cartoon with vague eyes.

Maratelle looks up when she hears Hux’s boots scraping on the floor. “Amy,” she says with a smile that pulls at her wrinkles. “Coming to help? It will be over quicker with you.”

Hux shakes her head. “I was thinking about trying to find those flowers again.”

“Oh.” Maratelle glances at the living room window. “Don’t you think it will rain again? Maybe you should stay inside.”

“I _do_ have a rain coat.”

“You could get a cold.”

“That’s not even how colds work.”

Maratelle laughs and tugs at the trash back once more. “Alright. Well, of course you know better. Take out the trash at least.”

 

The book is tapping against Hux’s side from the pocket of her red rain coat as she walks out into the dirt yard with two bags full of shredded wallpaper. There are garbage cans arranged outside the garden fence, already filled up with broken furniture and boxes of old magazines. Using the lids, Hux beats the bags inside the cans and slams them closed once the paper has compressed.

The road from the cabin is poked with puddles and washed out car tracks. Rain water drips from the trees and pats on the hood of Hux’s coat as she reaches the branching trail where water runs under the brambles and damp soil slips under her boots.

It’s humid under the forest canopy and sweat clumps the small hairs on the back of Hux’s neck and clings to her t-shirt and shorts under her heavy rain coat. There isn’t even a breeze coming through the canopy for some relief.

At the bottom of the hill, the river has outgrown its channel and the swamp pools are gorged with water. Hux hisses as mud gathers through the lacing of her boots and sinks into her socks. She toes over the pools and slips down to the pebbled shore that has been mostly lost under water. On the other bank, the nettles and brambles are being tugged by the river’s currents.

Hux holds onto the leaning trees as she steps on their roots to walk along the sloped bank. She can already hear the voices from the camp on the fields, the rush of legs through the rain jewelled grass and the clatter of cutlery on tables. The noises are muffled when Hux pulls up her hood.

Clumps of leaves stand where the marigolds were. Petals have dropped away into the swamp mud and mushed into the black and brown. Hux nudges a sunk stump with the toe of her boot and raindrops shake off the remaining teacup leaves. Hux bites the inside of her cheek and kicks the water for good measure.

Further down the bank, cow parsley grows in thick bunches that have bumblebees circling the air. Down there, the overflowing river tapers off into a calm stream with small cresting waves that glow like gold under the peeking sun.

Suddenly, the surface of the water breaks with a rush of froth and Hux’s feet slip from under her on the grass. She lands on her ass, the hems of her shorts hiked up and thighs plastered to the dew.

On the river, a blot of dark emerges above the surface. Bubbles rise and pop as a face appears, followed by the neck and shoulders, covered by droops of dark hair.

The person coughs and covers their face with palms as they turn their back to Hux – entirely unaware of her. They seem to snort and splutter, clearing out water from their nose before pushing back wet clumps of their hair. They cough again and step through the water that rises just above their chest.

“Hi?” Hux chokes out.

A yelp startles between the banks and the figure briefly disappears in the river before remerging again, choking on the water they must’ve gulped. Wide hazel eyes stare at Hux from above the deep green currents.

“Hi,” comes the strained reply. “You made me slip.”

“I can say the same,” Hux mutters; she hasn’t moved off the grass and the hood of her rain coat has fallen back.

“Have you been watching me?” words jump over the river, gurgled by the water touching the stranger lips— The girl’s lips?

“What—? No!” Hux insists. “And besides— Why are you diving there? The water must be dirty.”

“No…” The girl’s face dips under the water, leaving only her eyes that are coloured like the forest's sunset canopy and the dark rivulets of her hair that clings to her tanned cheeks. Then, her freckle dotted nose and the curve of her full lips reappear. “It’s fine,” she says. “I was listening to the river.”

“The river?” Hux laughs. “What… the fuck.”

The girl’s lips turn ugly as she grimaces. “I don’t care if you don’t get it.”

Hux can’t stop her grin. There is something stupidly childish about the stranger in the water, something that makes her feel so, so alive. “But why are you listening to the water?” she asks.

Droplets run off from the girl’s chin as she stands straighter in the stream. Her features fit her like hand-me-down clothes on a too small frame. “You could come and listen,” she says.

“No, I will stay here.” Hux crosses her legs on the grass.

A spill of laughter comes from behind the hawthorn bushes on the other bank. People clap. The girls have their eyes on each other.

“What’s your name?” Hux asks.

The girl in the water bites her lip and tilts her head like she is considering Hux. The angle shows her narrow jaw and the peculiar peak of her large ears. “Kylo,” she tells Hux.

“That's a girl’s name?”

There is a brief shrug. “It’s what I am. You—?”

“I prefer to be called Hux.”

Birds shriek in the canopies as a ball breaks out of the sky and falls through the branches, snapping them and tearing down to the ground.

Hux jumps up and watches as the baseball drops in the cow parsley. Bees and flies zip into the air like they are evacuating a crime scene.

The river rushes like white static as voices approach the tree line. Hux turns when the sneakered feet rush through the tall grass on the fields.

“We better get out of here if we don’t want to be mowed down by those kids—” Hux glances down at the water. The picture is missing the girl’s freckled shoulders and her dark head. There isn't anything on the calm river to mark that she was even there, it's all just calm gurgling water and the glinting riverweed under the surface.

“Kylo—?”

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all the bitch fighting and squabbling in this chapter is dedicated to youdidnotseeme for inspiring me to create the ultimate collection of yaoi hand screenshots <3

The café is a shack with an extended patio that has been attached to the farmhouse which stands on the edge of the fields that are fenced off by the forest. The patrons are the locals who know the owner by name and come daily for an evening rendezvous. They marinate under the cola branded sun umbrellas with their thighs tacked to white plastic garden chairs while wasps pick at their half-chewed pastries and stained coffee cups.

Hux blows a raspberry into her empty milkshake glass. Jamie is sat in her lap, sleepily picking at his socks while Maratelle keeps her back to her children to chatter with women on another table.

“—She will be the first to finish college in my family. It’s been quite a talk at the last reunions. Mom and dad think it’s adorable how determined she is.”

“Getting an education before she starts a family? I suppose it will help one day… But men don’t really like ‘intelligent’ girls.”

“I suppose.”

“They tend to get ‘mouthy’. Too much back talk. You know?”

“Mhmm.”

Hux forces bubbles into the pink muck at the bottom of the glass.

“So, how many grandchildren are you hoping for?”

“O-oh! I don’t know. Three would be fantastic! Imagine— Maybe triplets?”

The straw screeches.

“Oh, it would be so wonderful to have a house full of children again! I hope your girl finds a good man for herself!”

“She can find a good man in colle—”

“—Mom?”

Maratelle turns in her chair. The other women look at Hux through tinted glass of their shades that sit on brown, leathery cheeks.

“What is it, Amy?”

“I think Jamie is tired.” Hux tightens her arms on the toddler, his head lolls.

“Aww—What a sweetheart!” the sun-fried women coo.

Maratelle looks between her daughter and son. Her thin, cracked lips pinch. “Alright,” she says over the conspiring women. “Let’s get you both home.”

The last two days have cooked the dirt road bone dry and car wheels wobble over the new bumps the mud has shaped. Jamie’s head lolls in the bracket of his car seat while Hux’s grips the door handle, trying to keep herself seated.

Birds run across the road and butterflies catch on the flowers leaning from the hedges. The car passes over a stream that cuts across the path and goes on to disappear between the ferns. Water splashes on the back windows.

“Mom?”

The car bounces on rocks that have been washed down by the rain.

“Yes, Amy?”

“Can I walk back on my own?”

“Why? It’s almost two miles— And please don’t tell me it’s those flowers.”

Hux doesn’t respond.

“Amy?”

She watches her mom’s eyes skip through thoughts before the car loses speed and parks askew in a drying puddle.

“I want you at the house eventually,” Maratelle demands as Hux untangles herself from the seatbelt and stumbles out onto the road. “We need to make the cabin a home so that we can come back next year.”

“Why do you even want to come back?” Hux shuts the door, briefly rocking the car.

Maratelle turns in her seat to look at her daughter. There is something acidic in her eyes. “Why—?”

Hux shrugs. “You don’t like it. I don’t like it. We are both bored— Even Jamie!” She gestures at the sleeping baby.

Maratelle puts both of her hands on the wheel and tells her daughter, “Go on your walk and think about the way you speak to me. I know you are young and you  _think_  you are important, but you will respect your  _own mother_.”

The car leaves, abandoning Hux with the birds that chase insects in the humid summer air. Hux’s linen shorts stick to her thighs and her vest is patched with sweat as she steps off the road side. Her face blooms red with old anger.

The forest is laughing with the sound of creatures in the canopies. Keeping her bare legs from the nettles has become redundant to Hux; the sting is just secondary when it feels like she will burn out of her own skin.

She would rather be in France, or on the Spanish coast with her half-sisters. She should’ve taken up dad on the offer of studying at an elite school in Germany instead of staying at home to keep an eye on mom. It’s not like there are any opportunities for her with the local colleges.

Hux hisses at her own pettiness and kick up dry dirt with her sneakered toe. She can’t do anything now. She fucked up and it’s up to her to live with it.

Cow parsley blossoms touch Hux on her bare arms, skittering across her sweat-damp vest, and she finally looks up. The river has shrunk away from the banks and abandoned strips of grass and broken branches on the overhanging brambles.

Hux walks along the river’s edge as she watches the currents wink with light over the riverweeds that trail like hair under the surface. It’s as if, when she looks away, those green haired heads will turn after her in the water and blink with a thousand eyes.

Hux is snagged from the thought by fabric catching on her foot. She looks down at the wet scrap, drooping like a pale moth wing. It’s barely anything, probably a blouse just enough to cover up.

“If you steal my clothes I’ll kick your ass.”

A smile pulls at Hux’s mouth as she looks up.

Kylo is stood in the shallow of the river with the water skimming the tops of her thighs. Her hair does more to cover than the sopping excuse of underwear that is slipping off her hips and the thin, white cloth bra that barely fits her chest.

Hux swallows on an odd urge to pick up the scrap of fabric at her feet and run away.

“Listening to the river again?” she asks instead.

Kylo crosses her arms across her sternum. The lily pad she is holding in one hand by the stem slaps against her thigh. “No, it doesn’t have anything to say to me.”

“What about the birds and the bees?”

Kylo pouts. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Why would I  _ever_  do that?”

Hux walks down onto the pebbled bank and mimics Kylo’s posture. “So, are you going to tell me what you were listening for last time?”

Kylo steps back. “The river sings—”

“You’re kidding!”

Kylo takes another step into the water. “No. The river sings sometimes,” she repeats, “with the rocks and the leaves and everything that falls into it.” The stem of the lily pad droops from her hand and the leaf touches the water. “I told you. Come here and listen,” she says.

“No,” Hux laughs, walking closer.

“Then why do you keep coming here?”

A pinch pulls between Hux’s brows. She stands straighter. “Because—Because I—”

“— _I_  think,” Kylo interrupts, “It’s because you believe me.” She lifts her chin, like she is proposing a challenge. “It’s because you believe what I’m saying.”

“No!” Hux snaps at the girl. Her sneakered toes touch the water as she steps forward and points a finger and spits, “That’s bullshit!”

“Or—” Kylo spins the lily pad, letting it snap at the river. “It’s because you like me.”

A grin overcomes Kylo’s face when Hux splutters and slips on the pebbles as she tries to follow Kylo into the river, but stops when water starts gathering around her shoes. Hux stomps her feet and screeches.

“Is that what it is?” Kylo laughs. “You like me?”

“Stop—!” screams Hux, kicking water at Kylo, “—Putting words in my fucking mouth—! You fuckin’—!”

The lily pad slaps Hux in the face as Kylo’s laughter breaks out over the river. She wheezes and snorts, even when Hux throws aside the leaf and charges through the water – shoes, socks, shorts and top and all.

Hux runs into Kylo and shoves her into the stream, briefly stopping the laughter as feet are flung into the air with sprays of water. Resurfacing, Kylo squeaks and screeches as she flails and grabs onto Hux, trying to find balance as they both crash into the river.

The girls splutter and kick, sending crystal sprays as they struggle to plant their feet on the riverbed. Kylo jumps onto Hux to try and stay above the water and they both fall under the surface again with shrieks.

Hux scrambles for the shore, trying to get out of the river, but Kylo grabs her by the vest and drags her back. For her efforts, Kylo gets a kick to the stomach that sends her back into the water while Hux crawls onto the pebbled bank.

Lying face down on the rocks, wheezing for air, Hux listens from under her dripping hair as Kylo keeps on laughing and splashing in the water like a kid in a paddling pool. It’s when the water hushes and the giggles turn too sinister for comfort Hux turns onto her back.

The sun must be conspiring with all of this because it’s hitting through the canopy and framing Kylo like a perfect picture of summer. She is standing there, at Hux’s feet, with her tanned legs bared from the water and her thighs look softer than anything Hux has ever touched.

Hux thinks that if she tries to move, or even breathe, that she will collapse on the rocks because her body is absolutely refusing to cooperate. But Kylo doesn’t seem to have a care in the world as laughter drips from her like the water on her skin.

“You okay?” Kylo giggles.

Hux blinks and then blinks again. Thoughts are slowly crawling back inside her head as she stares the soft contours of Kylo’s body. It’s  _irritating_ how good she looks.

“Hux?”

Snarling, she kicks Kylo in the knee. “You planned that!” Hux spits.

Kylo shrugs and smiles. “I was only joking; I didn’t know it was the truth.”

Hux kicks her again and tries to go for her stomach, but gives up on the endeavour when the girl only laughs and steps out of reach. Exhausted, Hux drops her legs back on the pebbles and scrunches her toes inside the soaked sneakers. They squeak.

“Yeah. Maybe you should have thought about that twice.”

“Hm?” Hux forces herself to sit up as Kylo walks past her up the bank.

“Don’t blame me for your wet shoes.” Kylo grabs the scrap of fabric off the grass and pulls it over her head. The flimsy t-shirt barely sweeps over her hips.

Hux looks away from Kylo and reaches down to untie her shoes. “I’m going to blame exactly the person who provoked me—”

Someone is shouting for a kid in the fields. The name is distorted by other voices joining in.

Hux squints across the river. Butterflies hover over the hawthorn, lingering on the blossoms that are soaked with thick aroma. “Will they ever stop losing kids?” Hux mutters and looks away as she pulls off her sneakers.

Another yell, so close Hux can hear feet push through the grass. The insects don’t care about the commotion of voices, they just keep buzzing like white noise on a TV screen.

“Those supervisors should be fired.” Hux wrings out her socks and shoves them back inside her shoes that she ties together by the laces. “You must be used to this, considering you live here. Those teenagers arriving every summer are probably such a pain.”

The air buzzes with static.

“Right, Kylo?” Hux turns.

The grass winks in the sun, the insects hum and the river rings. Hux’s groan is the only thing that breaks through the wall of white noise.

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

It took Hux an hour to get home barefoot. Everything poked, snagged and the rocks of the dirt road hurt her feet.

Coming up the dusty yard, she crept into the cabin and glanced into the kitchen where mom was scrubbing the caked grime on the stove. She went by without talking and locked herself in the office to sit on the chair with her dirty toes hanging off the cushion.

Hux watched the shadows on the window set and fade until she couldn’t hear her mom in the cabin. In the kitchen, she stripped out her clothes and scrubbed her feet with a wet flannel as she sat on a stool in her underwear. She dumped it all in the washing machine and left her shoes in parade on the porch to wait for the sun.

Afterwards, Hux snuck into her borrowed bedroom and rolled into her sheets as her teeth clacked. She pulled the duvet over her head and rocked with the shivers that she hadn’t noticed until her hands shook too much to close the door.

The house sighs in the respite of cold and eases down into the foundations.

As the air between the folds of covers gets warm, Hux feels her chest ease through the exhales. She pulls the sheets down to her lips and stares over the edge of the mattress where the black pit of the room’s floor rests.

There is no light to touch the boards, then there is nothing to prove that they are there. So why should there be anything to meet her when she stands, Hux thinks in a sort of delirium.

The floor might as well just be the swamp that circles the cabin through the woods.

Hux imagines it, sitting up on the mattress, stepping down, and feeling water sink around her feet. She imagines the mud and the river smoothed pebbles, the stolen blades of grass and the strands of the riverweed as the water runs down into a stream.

Hux would walk forward while the currents run around her ankles and onwards, behind her. The further she would go into the room, the less she would see of it as the last light from the window would get lost.

When she is left with nothing to go by – no light, no sound, no feeling – she would stop. The water would be to her waist, pulling at her clothes like a suggestion to turn back. But she will ignore it as the riverweed tangles on her fingers and wrists. She will let it and hold it back as it holds her.

The water will gurgle around Hux like the white noise of a TV, hiding a clearer frequency underneath. She will strain to hear it, but it will all just be the background noise of nonsense. She needs to get closer.

Swallowing a gulp of air, Hux closes her eyes and submerges in the water.

The static muffles as the river drums in her ears. It hushes and thrums like a copper string. Hux squeezes her eyes as she strains to listen through the beating currents that pull on her hair. She wants to _hear_ it. She wants to _hear it_.

Riverweed eclipses around Hux. It pulls on her legs, clings on her thighs and slips past her cheeks – kissing her lips as she turns white with the strain to keep air inside her lungs.

She waits, listens, as water squeezes around her and the riverweed touches her like a thousand hands. She is getting dizzy as colours fizzle behind her eyelids. Hux doesn’t know how long she can keep her breath. She wants to get out and abandon this. She wants to be back in her bed under the covers, waiting till morning to help mom and watch the sun come over the yard—

The riverweed squeezes her hand as the rush of water rings around Hux, urging focus back inside her mind.

She almost doesn’t care or notice when the static clears and a hum, like an age old song, takes the water and shakes the earth under her feet.

There it is. That stupid unknown force.

Hux almost laughs as water trembles, but she swallows her giddiness when hands – warm, solid hands – cover her face and cup under her cheeks. She can’t see with her eyes so tightly shut, but she knows the idiot who dragged her down here.

How did she ever think that Kylo is just _Kylo_.

The idiot has finally got what she wanted. Kylo has Hux in the water. She dragged her down. But she can’t fool anyone with her whimsical games again. Or not Hux, at least; she heard the river, she knows it’s real, she knows it wasn’t just an innocent imagined game the girl had come up with.

She won’t have Hux with the act again.

Before the moment lasts, the hum becomes a swarm and air bursts from Hux’s mouth in bubbles. She feels them push again her teeth as water takes its place inside her lungs.

A sound comes from Hux throat like an animal is feeling its bones crush. She heaves and chokes, swallowing the water as the currents push her down the stream—Faster, faster, faster, sending her across the rock through the riverweed.

Faster, faster, faster—Turning and falling. Faster, fasterfasterfaster—

Hux falls and bites on her tongue as her back meets the wooden floor. The sheets are around her legs, damp with sweat.

The sun is hitting the window sill where withered plants stand in parade in their pots. Hux sneezes, swallowing mucus.

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning!! horny eighteen year olds up ahead!!

Gum pops and sticks to Hux’s lips. She scrapes the globs off with tacky fingers and shoves it back in her mouth. She had to move several times on the bank to follow the sunny patch and make a get away from a horde of ants that bit at her ass after she fell asleep.

Maratelle left Hux on her own today, having to drive to the nearest town to buy groceries and tools to fix up the cabin. She took Jamie and said that she will be gone most of the day, so someone has to look after the house while she is out. Hux was more than glad to be left alone, after being cooped in the same house as her mom while she recovered from a week-long cold as consequence of the dip in the water.

After getting bored of the house, Hux went down to the forest. She stripped off on the bank of the river and walked through the stream before redressing in the bushes and crawling under the line of hawthorn on her nettle stung knees. On the other side, she fell into a patch of chamomile and crept through the poppies and forget-me-nots to peer up at the rows of tents of the summer camp to the left of the field. They were scattered toward the edge of the river with pavilions at the centre where kids sat on benches eating lunch.

Snagging a handful of flowers from the field, Hux went back to the river and hurried across. She didn’t see much point in getting dressed properly again, so she lies in her bra and shorts on the grass, chewing through a pack of gum and sucking on the hard candy she brought from the cabin.

Hux rips out blades of grass growing around her and ties with them the flower stems into a braid. The poppies are fragile and they lose petals, so she replaces the ragged ones with pieces of cow parsley and leaves the grass hanging off like ribbon.

When Hux hears water break against the current and the reeds hush as they are pushed aside, she doesn’t look up from her work and tries not to seem self-conscious of being mostly naked.

“Are you gonna share?”

Kylo drops down on the grass beside Hux, propping up her freckled face on her hands.

Hux looks over at the pretty girl and pops a bubble of gum. “Fuck off,” she says before pushing over the bag of hard candy.

Hux lets her eyes go wandering while Kylo rummages through the bag. The girl is dressed in barely anything, as always, and her hair and skin are soaked. The yellow water lily hanging behind her ear is new.

Hux reaches up and brushes her fingers on the petals as Kylo slips a red candy between her lips. She tilts her head and lets Hux pull her hair out of the way, showing the halo of white skin on the nape of her neck where the sun hadn’t reached.

Kylo shows her red stained tongue to Hux and grins, snapping her teeth.

Hux pulls a smile back and whispers, “I wish you were real.”

A frown pinches Kylo’s face. “What—?”

“I know what you are, idiot.” Hux wonders for how long will Kylo try to pull this off.

“What am I then?”

Hux shrugs. “Just a dream.” She twists Kylo’s hair around her fingers and lets it slip to brush her knuckles against Kylo’s jaw. “A pretty hallucination trying to get me in the water.” She doesn’t come nearer to the lips that have been playing the lying game with her. “I know you. I’ve got you."

“I’m… A hallucination?” Kylo whispers. She seems confused and numb when Hux follow the drips of water down her neck with her fingers. It’s a little funny.

“That’s right,” Hux tells her. “It doesn’t matter what I tell you or do to you – if you aren’t real, then there aren't any consequences.”

“You think so?”

“People don’t die in their dreams, do they?”

“I guess not.”

Hux sits up. “Then it doesn’t matter if I do this, right?” she says and reaches over to pinch Kylo’s soft arm.

The pretty girl flinches away. “Don’t!” she whines, rubbing the abused skin that is blossoming with a red mark.

Hux does the same to her flank where her fingertips sink into the puppy fat. Kylo squeaks and rolls over, trying to shuffle away, but Hux is on her again. This time, she takes a pinch from Kylo’s full, round ass and twists the skin, digging her nails down.

With a yelp, Kylo flips over and kicks Hux in the sternum before scrambling back. Hux darts after her and they both fall, tumbling across the grass and moss.

They push and toss, digging their heels into the ground as they kick up lumps of earth. Hair gets pulled, legs are clawed and clothes are yanked out of place. Hux grabs Kylo’s shoulders and shoves her down with her back to the ground. Wriggling, dirty soled feet kick over Hux’s head.

Cursing, Kylo bares her teeth at Hux which twists her pretty flushed face into an ugly grimace.

“Fuckin’ bitch!” Kylo screeches and bucks her hips and chest as Hux locks her hands on Kylo’s wrists. “Let me go!” she shouts, thrashing. “Let me go!”

Hux smiles and drops down, hip to hip, between Kylo’s open thighs.

The girl’s lips taste so sweet from the candy that she sucked and Hux can’t give them up for even a moment as they kiss. Slowly, slowly, Kylo opens her mouth to Hux as she gives up the struggle. Hux lets go of Kylo’s wrists to take her askew jaw between her palms while they keep kissing in the respite of their little war—

A snip of teeth to Hux’s lip and it’s all over. Kylo shoves Hux aside and escapes, slipping and falling as she crawls on the dewy grass, laughing.

With the taste of Kylo still on her tongue, Hux decides that she hasn’t had enough.

Kylo yelps when she is pinned on the grass, flat on her chest with her arms and knees tucked under. Hux laughs in her ear as she lowers her weight against Kylo’s back, bracketing her with slim arms and legs.

“Fucking tease,” Hux hisses as she presses her nose and lips against Kylo’s damp hair.

Kylo laughs. “You like it.”

“I know.”

With her knees slipping on the grass, Hux rocks her hips down against Kylo’s ass, pushing her forward. Kylo turns her head, pressing her cheek against a curled fist as she braces against Hux’s slow movements. Hux can see the colour on Kylo’s face, the red staining her cheeks and lips, and she knows that Kylo enjoys being trapped under her.

Hux presses her lips to Kylo’s neck and whispers, “You are so fucking irritating.”

Kylo giggles, but the sound melts into a whine when she arches into Hux’s hands as thumbs hook into the elastic band of her panties and yank up.

“You going to do something about that?” Kylo mumbles with an askew smirk on her lips.

Twisting the fabric of Kylo’s underwear on her fingers, Hux pulls again and shoves Kylo down with her own hips. There is a happy, startled little noise from under Hux as she pulls the strained, damp fabric in a rhythm. She keeps it slow, to frustrate Kylo and make her work for it.

Hux almost bites through her tongue when she feels a hand on her ass. Looking over her shoulder, she sees Kylo reaching back to grab the belt loops of Hux’s denim shorts and pull in response. Hux swallows on a moan as she grinds back into the friction, using Kylo’s back and hips for purchase as she feels the denim rub between her thighs.

An angry whine comes from Kylo when Hux suddenly sits away from her, but then laughs when she is pulled back by her hips and sat between Hux’s open thighs.

With her lips to Kylo’s naked shoulder, Hux pulls Kylo’s arms out of the straps of her useless bra. Hux brings her hands over Kylo’s full chest and grins when she hears her sigh. While Hux digs her fingers into Kylo’s breasts, she is pulled forward by her hair and forced to put her mouth on Kylo’s neck.

Hux finds shameless pleasure in the feeling of Kylo’s skin against her own and the taste of her sweat on her tongue. She is the proud of how she makes Kylo giggle when she bites bruises into her skin pinches her nipples, twisting until Kylo squirms. It’s fun, and Kylo isn’t sorry either about how she gives into Hux’s hands.

This is better than the restroom fumble with some boy during high school prom. Hux had let him pull up her dress and fuck her (after helping the idiot to put the condom on). The guy made weird wheezing grunts and didn’t bother to do much other than call Hux a “bad girl” (which made her cringe). She made a noise to try and signal to the guy that she is done and he finished off with a wheeze and a slap to Hux’s thigh.

After, the guy boasted that he got a girl off with just his dick (Hux laughed until she threw up in her mouth).

Pushing down the memory, Hux turns Kylo by her jaw to kiss her while she uses to other pull aside her panties. Kylo sinks against Hux and moans under a biting kiss when fingers slip past the wet fabric to push through her pubic hair and feel her wet cunt.

Kylo twitches in Hux’s arms like an electric shock has passed through her when she feels fingers brush over her clit. Hux laughs when Kylo’s feet flinch and slip apart on the grass as she tries to spread her thighs for Hux to push her hand down and slip her fingers inside.

But Hux only teases her fingertips back over Kylo’s groin and giggles when she hears a confused whimper.

“Sorry, am I annoying you?” teases Hux as she pulls the waistband of Kylo’s underwear with both thumbs.

Kylo looks over her shoulder and squints her eyes. “You are a _bitch_ —” She squeaks when the elastic snaps back across her soft belly and hips.

“And why does that sound like a compliment coming from you?”

With one hand on Kylo’s chest, Hux puts the other between her thighs and rubs Kylo’s crotch through her damp underwear, catching her fingertips on her clit as she squirms and flinches. Between their laughter, they kiss until Kylo forgets how to move her mouth and sinks under Hux’s hands like putty.

They move in a lazy rhythm; Hux follows the circling of Kylo’s hips with her hand, putting pressure with her fingers on Kylo’s clit when she thinks she is near. She laughs at the frustrated sounds Kylo makes when she pouts because Hux cuts her orgasm off, keeping her teetering on the edge. It’s mean, but it’s more fun that way.

With the nails of her free hand digging into Kylo’s soft breast, Hux pushes past Kylo’s soaked underwear and rubs two calloused fingers against her clit. She refuses to let up until Kylo’s breath hitches. Pressing her lips and nose against Kylo’s neck, Hux feels her tremble. Warm and thick, cum seeps between Hux’s fingers as Kylo unspools under Hux’s hands with a pleased little sigh.

Hux puts her hands on Kylo’s waist, squeezing down on her puppy fat and wiping off her fingers as she breathes through her come down.

The air is scalding and Hux is feverish as she thinks about having Kylo’s hands on her, feeling the clumsy soft fingers exploring and fumbling. But the urge is overrun by a need to kiss Kylo on her cheeks; her face, even her lips are flushed such a pretty colour that Hux swears she tastes sweet berries on her lips.

After sneaking another kiss to the bridge of Kylo’s nose, Hux feels her hair being caught in an insistent hand that pulls her back in. Kylo’s lips meet hers crookedly and they kiss, askew and awkward, until they are laughing again.

“Fuck you,” Kylo whispers with a smile.

Hux flicks her on the jaw. “You better.”

Kylo refuses to move off Hux even after she slips down until it’s just her head resting on Hux’s stomach. Humouring her, Hux reaches over for the abandoned braid of flowers and unspools the grass and stems until she is just left with the stray blossom heads.

Since the yellow water lily got lost in the grass when Hux tackled Kylo, she replaces it with buttercups. Little braids find themselves into Kylo’s hair that are tied with grass blades and dotted by sprigs of cow parsley, a few daisies and forget-me-nots.

Little by little, while snoring Kylo gets crowned with buttercups and the shadows circle, Hux realises how badly she screwed up.

Flicking Kylo on the nose, Hux leans over her and watches consciousness slowly creep back into Kylo’s slumped body.

“Wish you were real,” Hux mumbles.

A hazel eye peeks up at her. “What?”

“You know.” Hux brushes back Kylo dry, frazzled hair, twisting the knotted ends around her fingers. “I could blink and you will be gone.”

Kylo smiles nervously and reaches up to pinch Hux on the cheek. “I’m real. Idiot.”

“Yeah?” Hux yanks Kylo’s hair. “Prove it.”

“How the fuck do I prove that I’m a living breathing thing?”

Hux considers her and says, “Tomorrow, meet me at the café— You know, the one near the farm down the main road.”

“I—”

“If you don’t turn up tomorrow, at seven, you’re just a pretty hallucination.” She concludes with a kiss stamped onto Kylo’s slack lips.

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

A wasp knocks against Hux’s milkshake glass. She swats it with the metal spoon and licks the stale froth off the tip.

The botany book is laid on the white plastic table, held down by ketchup packets from the sauce selection. Hux has read a section on wild roses and the bluebells and her eyes are starting to glaze over the sun bleached printed letters. She has already ordered the same milkshake three times and wasted an hour watching the patrons coming and leaving.

A group of kids from the summer camp site have come and huddled over a table at the edge of the patio. There is a girl and two boys and they are all leaning in to conspire over their waffles and fries. Hux slides down in her chair and lifts the book over her face every time they turn to stare.

The girl, with the bundled pompoms of hair along her head, sits up on her chair and glares at Hux over the heads of the patrons. Hux sinks even lower into her seat and pretends, out of decency, that she doesn’t know what is going on.

Hux had spent the day helping mom scrub the kitchen before being allowed to borrow the car and drive out to the café. She had arrived early and sat at the far end of the patio from where she can watch the incoming customers from the road, keeping the book poised in front of her face to avoid catching stares.

It’s eight already. Hux decides that Kylo’s parents must be holding her up. It is late, after all. Maybe she needs time to sneak out.

Fifteen more minutes, Hux tells herself as she watches the kids leave their table and wander down the path from the farm. If there was signal, Maratelle would have been ringing Hux’s clunky flip phone that she left in the desk draw of her bedroom. But there isn’t any and Hux is left to the nervous silence.

Moths bump into the electric lamps that hang from the poles that fence off the patio while Hux frantically rubs her legs to keep herself warm. She sticks her hands between her thighs, clinging onto the last warmth, and watches the summer evening sky bleed purple and orange.

The coca cola umbrellas are being pulled down like flowers for the night and Hux takes the cue to leave for her car. Behind the wheel, she sits a little longer and glares at the people trailing out through the gate leading from the farmhouse. Her hands flinch when wild, dark hair glimpses in the sunset shadows.

Hux leans forward in her seat, climbing over the wheel to press against the windscreen. She stares and hisses in frustration when she realises that it was just the leaves on a low branch.

The birds are frantic in the black canopies against the purpling sky as Hux drive uphill on the dirt road, squinting through the glare of the headlights. The strain to focus helps her to avoid wondering he she should have stayed a little longer.

She was so certain that Kylo is real when she touched her. The taste of her seems so fresh on Hux’s tongue even after having scrubbed her mouth of with toothpaste. The sugar stains her teeth like it’s only been a minute since she had been kissing Kylo.

A flash catches in the headlights and the wheels screech as Hux slams her foot through the brake.

She pants and stares at the road. It’s nothing. Just an untimely fox that is gone before Hux can make sense of its blur.

She thumps back in the seat, breathing hard as she tries to stop thinking about eyes catching light from the river’s depth.

The car groans when Hux eases it up the road. The seat is a little low for her and she has to lean forward to see the uneven surface of the path before the car rolls over it. This isn’t like being taught by her half-sister in the parking lot of her apartment. There is no flat tarmac or the certainty that she won’t crash and tumble off the hill the moment she loses concentration.

The sky is nearly pitch when Hux pulls into the cabin’s yard where a single orange light shines down from the porch where moths are plopping against the windows. Hux taps the book between her palms as she leaves the car and walks up the porch steps. She finds the net frame jammed and struggles to pry it open from the front door which has been left unlocked.

Inside, it’s dark and the sound of the dripping faucet in the kitchen echoes through the cabin. Hux feels her way through the living room into the corridor and catches the sound of Jamie snoring as she follows the scraps of wallpaper between the doorways.

The phone rings from the living room. Hux stands in the threshold of her room, counting out the electric gurgles.

A door opens and Maratelle’s slippers hush on the floor as she walks out to the table from which the house phone is screaming itself hoarse.

“Hello? Brendol—?”

Hux edges forward in the pause, trying to hear her dad.

“Oh—I’m sorry. Yes, ‘course— Amy?”

Hux walks into the living room and patters toward her mom who is holding out the receiver toward her.

“A friend,” Maratelle explains as Hux takes the phone.

In silence, Hux looks down at the receiver and presses it to her ear. Maratelle leaves the room.

“Hello?” Hux asks.

Breathing echoes through the line.

Frowning, Hux tries again. “He—”

“So it _is_ a reception-less hell hole your mother has dragged you out to.”

“Gw—”

“It’s Captain Phasma to you.”

Hux takes the receiver away from her ear and stares down at it before bringing it back up.

“We have a deal, remember?”

Yes, they have a deal. A deal that involves Hux calling Gwen ‘Captain Phasma’ for an entire year for helping her get out of gym class throughout high school.

Closing her eyes, Hux mutters, “Yes… Captain.”

“That’s better, so—” Gwen—Phasma is putting on the cheerful-sarcastic voice she usually chooses for the women’s high school football team. “What shit hole are you rotting in? You said it would be bad.”

“Well…” Hux looks around the living room with the sagging couch and scattered stool with price tags still attached. “There isn’t a computer, the cable channels are breaking, we can’t unclog the toilet and the oven almost killed us.”

“Wow,” Phasma whispers. “You are living in the pre-historic epoch.”

“Mhmm… It’s good to hear from the world of the civilised.”

“Yeah, not for much longer,” laughs Phasma. It sounds like she is pressing closer to the receiver. “Getting sent off to the academy, which means returning to the twentieth century.”

“You will deal with it. Just glare, stomp a foot and flex your arms and everyone will be listening.”

There is a knock on the doorframe. Maratelle is stood there in her bathrobe, tapping her wristwatch at Hux until she nods while Phasma laughs through the receiver.

“That will not fly so easily with the SEALs.”

Hux looks aside as mom walks back out into the corridor. “No, no. A woman showing off her biceps is the universal sign for ‘go against me and I will fuck you up’.”

“Mhm. Sure worked on you.”

“And the dozen other girls who swooned.”

Their laughter patters out into silence. Hux scrapes her nails on the telephone table where the lacquer has softened.

“You… Are you doing okay there, Hux?”

“Of course,” she tells Phasma as she digs a line through the timber, bending her nail. “I will be back in a week to see you off to the academy.”

Phasma doesn’t reply, but Hux can hear the sigh that means she is smiling. They sink into silence again, like they are standing side by side in the room and not seeing each other because there is no light.

“Hey, Gwen—?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you mind a stupid question?”

“Can’t be more stupid than usual.”

“Do you…” Hux says in a small voice, like a kid in class scared to be noticed. “Do you think mermaids are real?”

Hux braces herself for laughter, but there is nothing. Not even breathing through the line.

“Phas—? Gwen—?”

“Are you _okay_ , Hux?” Phasma hisses down the phone.

Hux flinches. “Yes, of course. Why—?”

“You are the one who makes children cry by telling them that Santa isn’t real _and you are confused why I ask you if you are okay when you ask me if motherfucking mermaids are real or not_!” Hux can hear Phasma panting once she finishes.

“Phas…”

“—You better explain yourself! And make it good.”

Hux smiles and bites her thumb. “I met this girl—”

“A _girl._ ”

“Yeah. And I think I’m going crazy.” Hux laughs when she hears a groan from the other end. “I swear. She isn’t like anyone I know and I’m starting to think she isn’t real.”

“And how does that work?”

“It’s going to sound stupid.”

“The stupidest thing has already come out of your mouth.” A pause. “Go on.”

“When I…” Hux drops her voice into a whisper. “When I kissed her… She seemed… Real. You know. I could feel her. But as soon as I turn away or the conversation gets inconvenient, she disappears. Just goes… into the river.”

“Conclusion: Mermaid.”

Floorboards creak in the hallway as Maratelle passes by. Hux clutches the receiver and watches the shadow.

“You’re right, it _is_ stupid,” Phasma tells her.

“But—”

“Go to sleep, Hux.”

“Phas—”                                                                                                   

“You’re being ridiculous. Whoever you met, she is just a girl. Mermaids are just as likely to exist as Santa.”

Hux grimaces and wonders why she expected Phasma to understand. “Alright. Fine… Goodnight.”

“’Night. I’ll talk to you when you get your sense back.”

A click comes over the line as Phasma puts down the phone. Bleeps fill the empty silence of the room.

“Okay,” whispers Hux as she places the receiver down. “Okay,” she repeats before heading off into the hallway where Maratelle is standing in the threshold of her room.

“Amy?” Maratelle calls out, but Hux is gone behind the door of her bedroom, turning the handle to lock it.

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

The peeled flakes of red nail polish fall on the dry ground like scabs. Hux leans over the porch to watch them twirl and drop in the dust while she chews on her thumb.

There is a knock on the open front door. Hux looks over her shoulder and smiles up at her mom who is stood in the threshold with a taped cardboard box under her arm.

“You might want to keep out of the living room,” Maratelle tells her. “I’m going to try to spray paint those pipes.”

“Okay, mom.”

More boxes are piled out and furniture scrapes across the floor between the rooms. Jamie is deposited on a blanket beside Hux while she reads from the botany book.

It’s been so dry the past days – it feels like the sun has cooked through everything and it’s getting difficult to even breathe. Hux is glad they will leave tomorrow for the city with air conditioned houses (which also means no more waiting for Brendol).

Hux watches Jamie throw his rattle down into the dirt yard as cursing comes from the cabin. A spray can rolls across the floor and Maratelle comes out of the door, coughing as she sits down on the step beside Hux. There is a dusting of white in her hair, clothes and her skin.

“The cabin is off limits today, I guess,” Maratelle says, wheezing through the coughs.

Hux smirks. “No more bug problems then.”

 

Her scratched leather bag is stuffed with the book and her feet are in dusty sandals as Hux wanders off by the dirt road through the forest. The bird calls are beginning to quiet as light catches gold on the trees when Hux passes the branching path off the side of the road. She keeps walking until the forest dwindles into sparse saplings and fields of tall grass.

The wild flowers touch the hem of Hux’s skirt and the grasses bow in the breeze that comes from the valley. The fireweed has already lost its blossoms as the heat of summer crawls into the beginning of a dry fall. Light is fading red on the horizon and the last orange halo seeps over the tree, it burns Hux’s hair golden and her skin brown as she squints up at the tiny arrow bodies of the swallows darting for the last catch of the day.

The path between the tall leaning grasses and the wild flowers dips into the forest where the ferns reach for the faint light. The sound of the river seeps into the silence and Hux follows the trail down to the stream.

The bright colours of the summer camp tents glance between the hawthorn. Hux is close enough to figure out the words of the voices across the river. She can see their shadows, skittering on the grass.

Hux walks past the camp, down the stretch of the river that she hasn’t seen before. There are marsh marigolds growing on the bank with their golden faces turned to the fading sun, across the stream of a brook that pours down from the rocks that have been mounded together under tree roots and into the river.

Hux steps into the cold water in her dusty sandals. The rocks in the stream force her to grapple for balance. She almost slips when she hears water splatter on the dry ground.

She looks up. Her feet slide. He doesn’t run because she knows illusions can’t hurt.

Kylo is watching her from under the waterfall of the brook. Her dark hair is drooping over her face and shoulders as water runs over her head, down her chest and soaking her underwear. Her pruned toes scrunch on the rocks and her shoulders and nose are pink from burning in the sun.

“Hux?” Kylo says and leans out from under the stream.

Hux turns and walks toward the marigolds. Her feet sink in the mud as she leans down to tear the stems. She ignores the ruined blossoms and the sound of Kylo’s wet footsteps slapping on the ground. She doesn’t even notice the weight of her bag is slipping off her shoulder and onto the grass.

Hux fists the stems and straightens up to walk back across the stream, but she is stopped by a hand on her arm.

She violently tears from Kylo’s grip and swats the girl away. Kylo gasps when nails catch across her chin, forcing her to shrink back.

“Fuck off!” Hux shouts down at her and walks away across the water. “And don’t fucking touch me again!”

Hux steps onto the other side of the brook when she is grabbed by her shoulders and dragged back into the water.

“Hux, please—! Don’t leave!” Kylo shouts, desperate to secure her slippery hands on her.

Hux tries to pull against Kylo as arms sweep around her chest and hold her tight. She drops the flowers and claws at Kylo’s fingers, kicking back against her knees and calves. But Kylo lifts Hux off her feet and carries her back a step before she is unbalanced by Hux’s frantic struggle and falls on her ass in the water.

Scrapes bleed into the brook as Hux crawls away on her knees from Kylo, the rocks cut her palms and the water soaks into her drooping clothes. She doesn’t get far before Kylo is on her, grabbing Hux around the waist and hauling her up.

Tired of fighting, Hux grinds her teeth and droops forward in Kylo’s arms while the girl clings around her.

“Don’t go,” Kylo mumbles into Hux’s back. “Please. I don’t want you to.”

Hux swings back her elbow into Kylo’s stomach and falls forward out of her arms. But instead of running, Hux turns and watches Kylo clutch her bruised abdomen.

“I told you not to touch me,” Hux tells her.

“Sorry,” Kylo mumbles under her breath.

Hux snorts. “What were you doing? Following me?”

Kylo looks up. Her chin is wobbling and her eyes are fogged up. “I wasn’t!” she whimpers.

“Good!” Hux shouts. “’Cause I don’t want to hear any more of your bullshit!”

“I’m not telling you any bullshit!”

Hux can’t tell if it’s water dripping from Kylo’s face or her tears. She can see how red Kylo’s eyes are as she mutters something and reaches for Hux. It’s almost terrifying how honestly innocent she looks.

Hux flinches and stumbles back when Kylo steps forward. She doesn’t get a second chance to get away when Kylo throws herself onto Hux.

“Please—” Kylo paws at her shoulders and again, staring at Hux’s bewildered pale eyes. “Please stay—”

Sloppy lips catch on Hux’s but she doesn’t respond. She only grimaces, sucking in her lips against her teeth while standing stock still against the damp hands that clutch her face and the smudged kisses on her cheeks.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” whispers Kylo, stroking Hux’s jaw with her shaking fingers.

“Why didn’t you come to meet me?” Hux hisses and shakes of the pleading hands.

Kylo looks at her with wide eyes. “I—I couldn’t—”

“Why?” Hux watches the girl shrink under her stare. “Because you got caught? Because there were people? Or—or is it because you don’t like me?”

Kylo’s eyes widen for just a moment before her teeth clatter against Hux’s mouth. Kylo shoves her back and they both stumble out of the brook and through the grass until Hux’s back hits the curve of a crooked tree.

“Don’t think that, don’t ever think that it’s _that_ ,” Kylo whimpers, trying to keep her hands all over Hux.

“Then what am I supposed to think?” Hux hates herself when she almost gives in and starts to believe what Kylo is saying.

“Are you really that stupid?”

Hux isn’t given a chance to reply because Kylo is grabbing her shoulders and kissing her again. Hux squeals when she feels a thigh shoved between her legs, hitching up the hem of her skirt and scrambles to get rid of Kylo’s hands when they fumble for the hem of her vest and pull. Hux chokes on the kisses when damp palms grip her ribs and push up against her breasts before disappearing once more.

Kylo slips onto her knees to kiss at Hux’s stomach and push aside her flimsy skirt to pepper kisses on her shaking thighs. Hux’s breathing heaves and her legs twitch when they are pushed apart by Kylo’s hands. Her head ducks between Hux’s thighs and her wet, warm tongue presses to the cotton of Hux’s underwear like a burning coal.

She almost shoves Kylo away, but when Hux looks down and sees the girl’s dark head, draped by the damp fabric of her skirt, she decides that the sight is too good to make her stop. Instead, Hux takes Kylo’s hair and pulls her forward when she feels the girl push aside the thin strip of fabric.

Hux’s shoulders scrape against the tree as she sinks at the feeling of Kylo’s tongue lapping up inside her. Hux bites her lip at Kylo’s desperate kissing and sucking between the velvet licks. Kylo’s soft, clammy hands paw at Hux’s thighs, holding her up close by her ass like she is the taste of heaven itself.

When Kylo starts to heave for air with her nose pressed into Hux’s groin, the thighs around her head only hold tighter until she starts licking again – dragging her tongue toward Hux’s clit and earning sounds from her flushed lips. Kylo is sure to work hard, diligently taking Hux’s weight on herself as her own knees slide apart on the mud and grass, but Hux decides it’s not enough.

She lifts one leg from Kylo’s hand and swings it onto her shoulder, digging her dirty foot into the curve of Kylo’s back as she forces her to choke on stale breath. Hux can feel Kylo start to shake from the lack of air as she sobs and brings Hux onto the edge with her sloppy, wet lips.

There is only a gasp and the sharp scrape of nails on Kylo’s scalp before she is let free with the taste of cum on her tongue.

The girl falls back onto the grass. Her face is red and pink, cheeks wet with tears and chin covered in cum. Her lips look like they ache, but Kylo doesn’t care as she stares up at Hux with glassy eyes.

“Does that tell you what you are supposed to think?” Kylo’s voice is hoarse, almost hushed over by the river.

Hux realises how far she was gone over her head when she allowed Kylo to touch her because when she looks up the sky is grey and blue. She can smell the rain in the air and the nervous pull of the wind in the branches.

“Hux?”

She looks down and steps over Kylo’s thrown open legs. She crouches over the girl’s heaving stomach and takes her sweet, soft face and kisses her on the lips.

Hux leaves her like that, tearful and leaning for a second kiss that she never gets as the rain comes.

 

 

“Mom! Mom! Did you touch my bags?”

Hux’s dirty boots skid on the floor of the cabin. Maratelle is standing on the threshold of the front door, holding a backpack by the straps and a bundle of plastic shopping bags filled with food for the drive.

“Your… Bags?” Maratelle asks.

“Yes,” Hux heaves, feeling the burn of frustration on her face. “Did you touch them, mom?”

“No—?”

“What about the _book_?”

“What book—?”

Hux swallows on her scream and marches back through the cabin. She throws open the doors of the rooms and stares inside each, scanning mechanically over the empty floors and furniture. Hux can’t remember if she left the wild flower book in the forest or if she had brought it back to the cabin. No matter how she shakes her mind, she just can’t recall.

It doesn’t matter, really. She can buy other books, find other things to distract her mind with. But this— This stupid book is like a scab on her mind that keeps itching.

Hux kicks into the room filled with garbage bags stuffed with old belongings. She tears into them and throws aside the clothes, pillows, duvets, toys— the knickknacks that tangle and make Hux want to break them.

She leaves behind the havoc and stalks across the hall into the room she used for her own. The window is locked down, but Hux pushes it open for a gulp of air and almost knocks off the parcel on the sill.

Hux grasps it by the strap and keep it in place as she opens the window. A fresh gasp of air rushes into the room as Hux uncurls her fist around the strap of her scuffed leather bag which is pocked full of the yellow heads of marsh marigolds. She unclips the closure and finds inside the book she has been hunting for, nestled between the stems of the flowers.

The car engine hums in the yard and Hux crashes the window closed as she loops the bag around her shoulder and rushes into the living room. She grabs for her suitcase and runs out of the front door which she locks with the key Maratelle left behind.

The suitcase is kicked into a gap in the boot and Hux takes her place on the backseat beside Jamie. She is clutching the tattered bag on her lap as she straps the seatbelt across her chest and the car eases out of the yard and through the gate.

The lumped dirt road takes them downhill through the forest where the trees are shaking off the rain. The shadows patter over the car with the water droplets and flood streams run between the wheels. The tall hedgerows skim by like run of a train and sky is flashing overhead. It will be several hours before they leave the borders of the forest.

Hux sinks in her seat, bumping her knees against the packed bags that have been stuffed throughout the back of the car. Jamie is drooling onto his bundle of plastic keys and Hux twists her face at him before turning to her bag. She is careful picks out the marigolds and putting them aside in a neat bunch on the middle seat before opening the book when light floods throughout the car.

Hux looks up and sees the fields. The car slows as Maratelle eases it over the broken tarmac that has been laid down and never fixed. Hux watches the line of parked coaches in the nook of the road approach. There are kids piled on the tarmac beside their bags, watching luggage compartments of the buses open.

The teenagers squabble beside the hedgerows, ripping off leaves and snapping twigs at each other’s legs. Hux sees a figure standing at the side with a duffle bag at their feet. As the car approaches, she makes out their crossed arms in a white t-shirt and thighs cut through by the line of shorts.

Hux almost doesn’t recognise the wild, dark hair when it’s pulled back by a ragged scunchie. She doesn’t have enough time to hide behind the car door to get out of the stare of Kylo’s eyes. The girl is stood at the side of the road, twirling daisies between her fingers as she smiles down at Hux. It’s over in a moment. Kylo waves at Hux as she turns in her seat to follow the last glimpse of Kylo’s face before she is gone behind the corner.

Hux keeps staring at the disappearing line of hedgerows and the flanking wild flowers until her neck starts to ache and she collapses back in her seat.

An apology would not be enough, but Hux would’ve liked to try anyway; she was the idiot for pushing Kylo away.

Hux opens the book in her lap and holds it up to cover her wobbling lips. She flips through the pages, back and forth, her eyes blank to the words and the pictures— Until she notices unfamiliar handwriting on the dedication page.

It’s just under the single string of printed word, the hurried digits written in pencil and ‘till next summer?’ beside them.

Hux knows her voice isn’t even when she closes the book and asks her mom, “Can we come back to the cabin next year?”

Maratelle almost turns in her seat. “Why—?” she looks at Hux through the rear-view mirror. “You… Like it here?”

“Yeah. I suppose it’s better than the city.”

“Really?” Maratelle isn't trying to hide her smile. “Yes. ‘Couse we can come back.”

“Thank you.”

Hux presses her thumb over the words, feeling the divots where the pencil pressed too harshly. She looks down at the marigolds beside her, wondering how would they look in the wild curls of Kylo’s hair.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
